Unplugged: Bryan Colangelo’s state-of-the-Raptors address

Toronto Raptors president and general manager Bryan Colangelo spoke for over an hour on Monday morning about the season that was, including the performances of his players, coaches and his decision to rebuild the team. Here are some of his comments.

On rebuilding: “I knew that at the time Jay Triano and I would be looking at a situation where we would have to check our respective egos, desires et cetera at the door and put the best interest of the franchise both short term and long term ahead of our own. But it was an important thing to do as we embarked upon rebuilding. There’s that word that we certainly didn’t want to use last year and hoped for the opportunity to do otherwise. But the reality called for us to rebuild this team.”

On DeMar DeRozan: “If he now becomes the full package, which would entail him developing a three-point threat, getting much better defensively and even rebounding the ball better — these are all things I talked to him about — he has a chance to be a special player. His second-year numbers are much better or better in some cases than a number of the top athletic scoring wings in the game. You can list Kobe Bryant, Monta Ellis, Joe Johnson, others. This is a young man with immense talent who is just 21 years old.”

On the roster’s biggest need: “It’s easy to say with a team that won 22 games and young guys that produced well that we have everything we need in the pipeline to get to the next level. Clearly, we want to address a few glaring needs. The biggest need in my opinion is that we have not paired a legitimate [centre] next to Andrea Bargnani.”

On the team’s poor defence: “Overall defensively, do we have to get better? Yes. Is it all personnel? To some degree, yes. And I’ll take my share of the blame for that. I think we need to have a mindset. I think we need a system that’s executed well. Those are all areas that we’re going to be talking about this summer.”

On coach Jay Triano, who has a contract option that must be picked up by mid-June: “Clearly, he did everything we asked him to do this year. There was a plan in place. Again, I mentioned it was not an easy plan. Jay stuck to that plan, to his credit, sacrificing his reputation along the way.”

Also on Triano: “You’re talking about players that truly like the guy. That’s half of the battle in this business. … I would also say that if I’m not here, he deserves consideration as the head coach.”

On the draft, for which the Raptors have the third-best odds of winning the lottery: “I don’t think we’re married to the third pick. But trading away the third pick is not an easy proposition in most situations. I don’t think anybody on this team is untradeable. I think we have to have that open mind and maximize what our assets are. … I’ve made the point that depending on where we end up, regardless of what we have on our current roster and how we’re built with ongoing commitments, I think you need to take the best available talent and let the dust settle from there.”

On Chris Bosh leaving: “We are better for it in the long run because we don’t have the weight of a $126-million contract moving forward stopping us from where we are heading.”

On the team’s future: “Again, I’m not sure we can line it up any better: high draft pick, good, young developing talent, financial flexibility that’s going to allow us to be reactive to whatever the new rules might look like and I believe assets that have trade value if we decide to trade people. To make a promise about when we make the playoffs? I’d like to say we’d make the playoffs next year. I always say that. That’s what I’m shooting for this year. Hopefully it’s in context of this growth where we’re not just making the playoffs, but building toward a contending team.”

On this year’s team, which he said had improved chemistry versus last year’s team: “Did they always play as a team? No. I think sometimes we played as individuals even though we liked each other and we had the right group of guys, I think sometimes we played individually. When we moved the ball and shared the ball and got up and down the court, we were fun to watch and hard to beat. We didn’t do it enough. Maybe at some point we didn’t have the talent or experience to do that enough.”